When I enter the excellent occult gift shop Paper Moon in Totnes, I can’t see its proprietor, Ralph, but there is a pile of large, dry white leaves behind the counter, and they’re moving slightly. “Never have incense burning when you’re eating cheese,” the leaves announce. “It’s a disaster.” Being used to Totnes by now – a town where, just half an hour ago, I saw a white van with the words “Unicorn Ambulance” stencilled on it – I’m not too freaked out by the idea of talking foliage, but I am a bit spooked that the leaves seem clairvoyantly aware of my plans for the weekend. It’s a relief when a man I’d not noticed behind a stand of cards on the other side of the shop replies, “I know. I should stop doing that. Camembert is the worst. It really absorbs the vapours.”
“Oh, hello,” says Ralph, popping his head up from behind the leaves. “What have you got there?” I ask him. He tells me the leaves are white sage, which, according to Native American belief, has strong cleansing properties. “People often use it to fix negative houses,” he says. Until recently, I did own an extremely negative shed, but my house feels pretty positive on the whole, so I decide to refrain from a purchase. There is plenty of interesting stuff to buy in Paper Moon – I’m zoning in on a book about Britain’s lost green lanes, a twig pentagram and a linocut of an owl right now – but today I’m here to quiz Ralph about Dartmoor.
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